Bellagio Residency: March 2022
Project: “Children of a Modest Star: Governing in the Planetary Age”
Jonathan Blake is a political scientist and Associate Director of Programs at the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles. Blake came to Bellagio in March of 2022 with collaborator Nils Gilman to work on a book tentatively titled “Children of a Modest Star: Governing in a Planetary Age.” The book argues that contemporary governance institutions, principally the nation-state, are incommensurate with the scale of many of the most pressing problems facing humanity. These problems are planetary in nature, while their effects on populations are locally specific. As nation-states cannot govern well at either level, the book proposes new systems of governance, at both the planetary and local levels, appropriate for the present and coming threats to our shared future.